Survey: Fraudulent accounts go dark before an attack

According to a new DataVisor report nearly half of fraudulent accounts will sleep or go dark before launching an attack against a business. Researchers found that these so called 'sleeper cells' will work against a company for weeks before an attack.

What's more, these fraudulent user circles will hide among regular users to test a businesses security and infrastructure. Then, when it comes time for the main attack, these sleeper cells will go to sleep - they won't visit, research, or buy anything from the business.

One other interesting finding - most fraudulent accounts are created via a desktop (82%). Fewer than 20% are created using mobile devices.

"The Fraud Economy is flush with billions of dollars in resources. It's no longer just one malicious user causing trouble, but rather massively funded armies numbering in the hundreds who are providing a big payout for these bad actors," said Yinglian Xie, CEO and co-founder, DataVisor. "The fraudsters are becoming adept at looking like normal users and it's clear from our research that they are increasingly sophisticated and using the latest technologies available to skirt detection. The DataVisor Online Fraud Report will hopefully serve to help inform and empower the fraud fighting community in our war against a common enemy, one sleeper cell at a time."

Other interesting findings include:

• Fraudulent accounts are 8 times more likely to use Android devices than iOS devices
• 53% of fraudulent accounts use email services like Google and Yahoo
• Fraudulent accounts targeting social are 17 times larger than those targeting financial services